I didn't read much non-academic material during my MA, but I did get round to a few good books and thought I would share them with you.
Notes on a Nervous Planet by Matt Haig - I picked this up on the recommendation of my good friend Kieran, who absolutely loved it, and I wasn't sure what to expect. Matt Haig is an author with a very eclectic bibliography, who writes candidly about his experiences with mental health, and Notes on a Nervous Planet is a series of vignettes in which he muses about the state of the culture we live in, and its effect on our mental health as individuals and as communities.
The result is an enjoyable experience but also something of a mixed bag. The book switches between larger, more researched sections, and shorter chapters that briefly touch on an idea. I found the 'list' format of some sections frustratingly abrupt, but at the same time I can appreciate that I'm used to long, dense texts and that, for some people, short paragraphs and lists are more accessible for busy lives, or if they aren't big readers. Despite the brief format, Haig has a lot of poignant things to say, and he says them very well. His exploration of the ways in which smartphones have drastically affected our ability to have healthy relationships with ourselves and others was absolutely inspired. Haig also creates an analogy between the internet, creating connections and passing information - and the brain, with its neurons firing and endlessly developing frameworks. In the same way that the internet creates this illusion of absolute truth, but actually spawns a lot of misinformation and warped perceptions, your brain is an incredible machine, but it isn't always your best advisor and sometimes it will flat out fuck you over.
Much of what Haig recommends as the antidote to our cultural climate is reminiscent of something called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), where one accepts that sometimes we are going to get feelings and thoughts that make us uncomfortable, and we commit to healthy actions that align with our values and goals, rather than reacting to something generated in the brain, be it 'I wonder if someone replied to my tweet' or 'I can't believe I did that, I'm so stupid and I deserve everything bad that happens to me'. We can accept that our brains might give us these things, without reacting to them in a way that takes us away from what is important to us. Getting upset over old mistakes or Twitter replies are not valuable uses of anyone's time, and to get over that you don't have to stop caring about them, you just have to acknowledge when you feel things about them, and then get on with a life that makes you truly happy. ACT has been a vital part of my own mental health journey, so I really enjoyed seeing similar ideas presented in such an accessible way.
Overall I did really enjoy this book, and although I found it skimmed the surface in some places where I'd have liked more depth, I accept that it's called Notes on a Nervous Planet, not Matt Haig's Comprehensive Overview of the State of Human Mental Wellbeing in the Modern Age, and Exactly How we Improve it. I think it's a great introduction to the principles of modern mental wellbeing, and I look forward to seeing what Haig brings out in the future.
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman - This. Was. EVERYWHERE a few months ago, and I read it mostly in two sittings on the plane to and from my trip to Rome in March. This is a pretty chill, enjoyable read about a woman who leads a solitary life, with a rigid routine, until one day an elderly man falls in the road, and her stopping to help him opens up a whole new world of people, community, and friendship. This book is far from perfect. Its depictions of mental illness aren't especially coherent or realistic, and the idea that somebody's life can be changed so drastically by what is essentially 'the power of friendship' left a weird taste in my mouth. Nevertheless it was still a very enjoyable and compelling read, and I went from not caring in the first few chapters to caring SO DAMN HARD for the rest of the book.
Honeyman has a real way of setting the scene and creating characters that are completely imperfect, but also incredibly lovable and it was such a joy to feel part of a story that was so warm and optimistic, especially when so many depictions of mental illness fetishise the miserable and frightening parts of it. I really found myself rooting for everyone in the novel, because it's a story about the better part of human nature, and how there is so much goodness in the world if you just give yourself the opportunity to go and find it.
I won't pretend this was some groundbreaking work of literary merit, but not all books need to be, the novel's strength is that it is unassuming, uplifting, and doesn't ask too much of anyone. It just invites you to snuggle up on the couch with a blanket (or against the wall of a plain avoiding the elbows of the random guy next to you) and experience what it has to offer.
When I Hit You - Meena Kandasamy - If I could throw this at everybody in the world and yell "read it!" I would. This is a searing, gut wrenching, infuriating account of one woman's descent into an abusive relationship and oh my god it made me so angry. Kandasamy writes in a way that I didn't get along with at first, it felt too dry, too flat and 'observing', but, as I read, I realised that being kept at arms length from what was going on by the narrators disinterested voice was all that would let me get through the novel. We watch our unnamed protagonist grow up as an intelligent, opinionated feminist, who gets that identity slowly stripped away by her husband. He steadily gaslights her into isolating and diminishing herself, by using her own political beliefs against her, (why do you want to be a writer? Don't you know that that's the profession of the bougie middle class, who would rather write than take action? Why are you wearing lipstick? A feminist should be bare faced in solidarity with poor women who can't afford it! Instead of dressing up to please men like a whore!) and by the time he starts beating her, it's like both the reader and the protagonist knew it was coming, but were both powerless to stop it.
Kandasamy takes to task the idiotic things people say about domestic violence survivors, asking why they didn't 'just leave', or arguing that they must have been weak to take the abuse and not tell anyone. Kandasamy shows, with no pulled punches, how abusers create the conditions for their actions, spreading lies and isolating their victims. But Kandasamy also shows the raw strength and fire that exists inside those survivors, and the tiny domestic victories the protagonist fights for, the way in which she manipulates the conversations in which her abuser berates and diminishes her, so that really, she has won the argument even if he doesn't realise it. She controls even the most brutal and horrific scenes as the narrator, often describing how she would depict this scene if it were a film she was directing. The result is an incredible experience in which the person who is suffering, neglected and beaten remains in charge of their narrative, which is so important when talking about survivors of domestic abuse.
If you look at the picture above, in the middle of the right side of the front cover, you can see a little lip forming where the lamination is peeling away from the book. The reason that happened is because I had been gripping the book so hard while reading, and I was only a third of the way through. By the time I had finished I had held the book so tightly out of rage and frustration, the front and back covers both had large sections where my hands had pushed the lamination up from the page. If you haven't read this yet, you are missing out on an experience that is unlike any other.
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